Letting the Dark In
by morgana07
Summary: 1-shot. Missing scene from 10x11 There's No Place like Home. Sam & Charlie researching in the bunker & Sam recalls some of his time while soulless as he works to convince Charlie to accept something she doesn't really want to. SPOILERS!


**Letting the Dark In**

**Summary: **_1-shot. Missing scene from 10x11 There's No Place like Home. Sam &amp; Charlie researching in the bunker &amp; Sam recalls some of his time while soulless as he works to convince Charlie to accept something she doesn't really want to. SPOILERS!_

**Warnings: **_Minor for some language but nothing serious. _

**Tags: **_10x11 There's No Place Like Home_

**Spoilers: **_Yes, there will be some._

**Disclaimer: **_I don't own anything._

**Author Note: **_So the muse wasn't going to do a tag for this episode until a couple friends JaniceC678 and Wincesteriffic Kaz were mentioning a lost chance the writers missed between Sam and Charlie so the muse popped up. I blame the cold and cough for it though. Enjoy!_

**SPN SPN SPN SPN SPN**

"You know why you have to let dark Charlie back in, right?"

Looking up from the laptop and files spread across the table in the Men of Letters bunkers, Charlie frowned a bit before shaking her head. "What she did in Oz was bad, Sam. You don't understand how bad it was. I…I don't want that inside me. You don't know what that would feel like."

Sam Winchester sat down slowly to stare at the quirky redhead before smiling a little dryly. "Yeah, actually I know a lot about what that would feel like," he told her before taking a moment to decide if he seriously wanted to risk bringing back these memories on top of everything else he was dealing with right then.

"When I came back from Hell…I came back soulless and as my brother can tell you that was not a good me to be around," Sam didn't like to talk about that time. He'd willfully put it in the back of his head once his brain had been set to rights fully because he still suffered the guilt and pain from what he did during that time, both before and after he started hunting with Dean again. "Trust me, I know only too well what it feels like to come face to face with a dark side of yourself. Been there, done that but…no matter what we want to think everyone needs that little piece of dark."

"She cut the throat out of someone Dorothy trusted all because the munchkin said the plan was too dangerous," Charlie tossed out.

Sam sat back in his chair to nod his head a little. "I stood by and watched my brother be turned into a vampire," that was one of the things that the younger Winchester still felt guilty over and would fight to atone for.

"She made a pass at the Good Witch and had sex with her assistant," Charlie countered though the whole vampire thing still seemed to top her complaints about her dark self.

"I was having sex with some hippie chick while Dean was abducted by faeries," Sam knew better than to bring that issue up to his brother since Dean would still shut him down if he tried. "The whole empathy thing didn't click with him or so Dean and Bobby said."

"Obviously," Charlie muttered, eyeing the man beside her closely as if trying to decide if he was making things up to convince her to take her dark self back. "She threatened to kill Dorothy if she tried to put us back together or stop her from coming back here," she shot a triumphant little smile to the hunter as if knowing he couldn't top that sin but then frowned as Sam's face changed. "Sam? Did…he…you…did he do something worse than that?"

"When Dean became insistent on getting my soul back because it became plain that he couldn't control me and eventually I was going to go off the rails on someone…I didn't want it because I knew that would mean the guilt and pain of that guilt, the memories would also come back," Sam began slowly, fingers flexing and he could still recall the night his soulless side had gone off the deep end. "I had very little to no feelings for anything or anyone, Charlie. I was the perfect hunter because I didn't see black and white. If I saw a target I killed it. If I wanted sex, I had it. And if I had to lie, cheat, con, or steal to get something done then I did it and I didn't give a damn who that hurt.

"When I came back, was brought out of the Cage soulless, Dean didn't know for a long time and I was found, I originally thought I stumbled on them but now I think I was intentionally found by our mother's father and some distant cousins," Sam pushed up to go get another book to search for and so he could move as he was suddenly restless. "I hunted with them. I was the perfect little hunter until I went a little too far on a job and I think Samuel realized he had zero shot at controlling me. That was when Djinn decided to target my brother; another perfect timing thing that I now see was plotted out to bring us back together."

Charlie turned to watch Sam pace. She knew some of this but there'd always been one thing that confused her. "Wait. Why would someone bring you out of there without your soul?" she asked, never understanding that.

"Yeah, that's something I still need to discuss with him sometime," Sam muttered but then coughed before he got to thinking too hard and too long on that issue. "The point is, even when Dean and I started hunting together I didn't care. I flat out told my brother that I didn't care about anything, including him…but…there was a time when our 'loving' grandfather turned my brother over to ghouls that I think I realized Dean might've been the only thing I did still care for a little…vampire thing notwithstanding. The thing is, Charlie, that side of me or Robo-Sam as Dean liked to call it did cross a line and that was the night I almost killed Bobby."

"He…you…whoa, that was dark," she whispered, shocked but also curious. "You…he…darn it…didn't, right?"

"Only because Dean got back in time to stop me," Sam still recalled the months that Bobby had watched him warily and the guilt he'd felt when learning about what his soulless side had done. "When Death put my soul back in, he put up a wall to protect me, my mind, from those memories and from my time in the Cage because Dean was scared I'd crack if I knew…and in some ways he was right.

"When we were trying to stop Castiel from opening Purgatory, to stall or stop Dean from stopping him he kicked that wall in; shattered it and me," the hunter decided not to dwell on that too long either since it was another slightly sore and unresolved issue he was burying. "In my mind I had to choose to accept that side as well as the side of me that survived what was done in the Cage back to make myself whole. It wasn't an easy choice because he didn't want to go peacefully because he saw me as weak and I saw him as a murdering cold blooded asshole but to be with Dean, to go and try to help my brother, I accepted him back and I still have those memories. I still have the guilt because it's a part of me but I wouldn't be whole without either of those sides of me. Just like you won't be whole without that side of you."

Sam came back to sit down, taking one small hand into his own to hold it while looking into large innocent eyes; eyes that he understood only too well because he remembered the fear he faced while accepting to take those memories and that cold side back on.

"She makes you hard, makes you see things in the grey area but she also protects that tender heart from being crushed," he told her. "I know you don't like to know the things she's done there or here but you will never fully be you without her, Charlie. You will never be the girl who went to Oz in search of an adventure, or the Queen on Moondor or any of the person you were unless you face what that side has done and then take her back," Sam smiled with encouragement. "It's not easy facing the darkness inside us but if anyone can do it, it's you."

Charlie chewed her lip while taking this in. She still had her doubts but listening to Sam tell her about some of the things his dark side had done before taking him back made her pause. "Did…Dean ever forgive you for the vampire and faerie stuff?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah, he did," Sam replied and certainly hoped his brother really had since those were things that Sam still hadn't forgiven himself for. "Asking for forgiveness from others is easy," he told her while lifting her face up in his palm. "Forgiving ourselves can be harder and take a lot longer but…eventually it happens."

"So…if we find a way back to Oz or find a way to reunite me and dark me…you think I'll be able to forgive myself for everything done there and here?" she asked hopefully. "Have you reached that point yet?"

Sam looked at her for a long moment. "I think you will eventually," he replied slowly, adding when she kept looking at him. "For some things, I have. For others…for others I and someone else still have a lot of atoning to do. But the biggest step is accepting that you want her back."

"Well, I don't but…" Charlie blew out a breath before giving Sam a forced smile that almost looked like her old self. "I don't think I want her out having hippie sex either so I guess I better take her back."

"That's my girl," Sam laughed. He took Charlie in for a hug and hoped something good might come from remembering those dark memories. "Now, tell me what you've found so we can find your other self. I think Dean's ticked because she slit the Impala's tire."

"Oh my God, what was I thinking?" Charlie hid her eyes even at the thought of any harm coming to Dean Winchester's beloved car. "Hey, what's up with Dean?" she asked.

Sam paused while leaning over to look at what she'd found on his laptop to sigh. "Dean's having his own battles with darkness but he'll beat it just like you will," he said with a smile while adding a silent 'I hope' to himself and went back to work.

**The End**


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